Ford: responses to life's small questions

Posted: Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Wayne

Ford

"How you doing?" The answer usually is "fine" or "good." I hear it all the time.

Not long ago, I was over at Holloway & Sons Tractor Co. north of Danielsville in Shiloh talking with Wayne Holloway, when we walked around the corner of a barn and there stood Lee Carey. He was wandering through the tractor parts and in his Red Camel overalls, he looked like a working man, even though he was born in 1922 and well beyond retirement age.

"How you," Wayne Holloway said.

"I'm still above ground," Carey said.

Later in the afternoon, I was interviewing Broden Holloway, the man who got this tractor-parts business going, when a car stopped and Bartow Henry stepped out.

"How are you," Broden said.

"Hanging in their like a hair in a biscuit," Henry replied.

I laughed and asked Henry where that came from. I thought it was an original saying, but he said it came from a country music song.

Even though it wasn't original, it was enjoyable to hear descriptive replies to an old question. These are replies that can at least elicit a smile. Maybe that's the true nature behind why some people come up with such answers. Get the other person to smile or at least think.

Usually, during the week I see another Madison County man, T.L. Jones, but he almost never says "how are you doing." He says "what you thinking." Sometimes I don't know what to say. Coming up with a good reply takes a quick mind or I just say "nothing." But somehow that doesn't sound too smart.